Dance Instruction - Dance Induction: Aesthetics, Gender Performance, and the Dancing Male Jack Migdalek

Introduction

This paper is written from my perspective as a male dance practitioner with a background in contemporary and commercial dance. I worked as a performer, dance teacher, and choreographer, and was director and choreographer of a national and state funded ‘dance in education’ company that toured Australian public and private schools during the 1980s. This paper is an account of gender inequity in the field. I will show how the perception and aesthetic appreciation of performances of femininity and masculinity in mainstream Australian social contexts varies according to the biological sex of performers (Connell 1995, Gard 2006). A figure performing an action with delicate deportment signifies very differently when performed by an individual who projects as a female as when performed by an individual who projects as a male. Put another way, dance that is appreciated as aesthetic or attractive on a body that projects as female, is valued differently on a body that projects as male (and vice versa).

Taking Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of ‘cultural capital’ (1990) wherein individuals are valued according to competence in various social settings, Shilling (2003) speaks of ‘physical capital’, where the physical body itself is the bearer of value in society. The male dancer who commands the stage through physical power and athleticism may be understood to have physical capital. The male dancer who moves softly and delicately may be seen as physically impoverished. This kind of scripting hinges on biological sex (Halberstam 1998), and is often the only way that many are able to engage with notions of gender and sexuality (Mac an Ghaill & Haywood 2007, Davies 1989, Butler 1990, 2004, Monro 2005). Indeed such scripting can become so established that it acquires the status of being authentic and unquestionable (Alsop et al. 2002). Scripting is likely to have an effect on both the actions that those who project as male or female might choose to perform, as well as the practices of those who train, teach, and choreograph the bodies of others.

In Part 1, I draw on Bourdieu’s (1990) theory of ‘habitus’ as non-consciously performed practices, and critically interrogate my own practices as a male dancer, choreographer, and dance educator. I analyse the influence that my training and induction into heteronormative discourses and ideologies concerning stylisations of the body and aesthetic notions of embodiment deemed to befit a male body have had on my work as a dance practitioner. I discuss the experience of being caught up in embedded social notions of masculine and feminine embodiment.

In Part 2, I examine the social aesthetics of gender embodiment through the example of male dancing in the reality television series ‘So You Think You Can Dance Australia’ (Network Ten, 2008), and discuss and analyse fieldwork that I conducted with high school students and performance arts practitioners/educators. In addressing tensions between individuals’ cognitive perspectives on the embodiment of gender, and the freedoms by which they allow themselves to operate, I speculate on ways in which embodied gender inequality that manifests in dance and dance education may be challenged and deconstructed.

By embodiment, I mean the manner or ‘bodily technique’ (Mauss 1979) in which a physical practice (choreography) is executed, as opposed to the matter of embodiment (body size, shape, colour, adornment). Where I refer to gender, I refer to socially constructed aspects of femininity and masculinity, and not to biological sex. I am wary of and opposed to conflations between notions of gender and those of biological sex within public discourse (Butler 1993, see also Kehily 2002, Paechter 2006). While gender categories of masculine and feminine may be dependent on culture, setting, and time, and as such are difficult to define (Butler 2004), I use these terms in order to draw attention to the social alignment of masculinities to male bodies and femininities to female bodies (Francis 2009). Here ,a ‘feminine’ manner is gentle, graceful, delicate, soft, pliant; and a 'masculine' manner is strong, forceful, powerful, unyielding. As per Laban's movement analysis (McCaw 2011), feminine styles of motion predominate in ‘light effort

1 actions’ (dabbing, gliding, flicking, floating) and masculine styles of motion predominate in ‘strong effort actions’ (punching, slashing, wringing, pressing). Physiologically and choreographically, male dancers are capable of a broad range of physical poses, reposes and action. Yet in most Australian contexts they do not dance — nor are they choreographed to embody — beyond a small range of possibilities. However they might be abstracted, human forms in dance can never be separated from social constructions of meaning and significance (McKechnie 2002), and to our enculturated eyes the biological sex of a performer continues to be both prominent and meaningful. Connected with notions that male dance is accessible and acceptable only when on a par with highly athletic sporting feats (Burt 1995, Gard 2001, Foster 2001, Gorely et al. 2003, Risner 2007), male dancers are frequently choreographed in hypermasculine ways (Buchbinder 2004, Gard 2006). It can be argued that prevalent images such as these (e.g. in mass media advertising and music videos) cultivate and reinforce aesthetic sensibilities of what type of male dancing is attractive and acceptable. Conventional binary signalling of gender in dance, understood to be an artefact of traditional classical ballet, continues to press forcefully on contemporary forms of dance too (Banes 1998, Stoneley 2007). So powerful is the force and residue of dominant gender aesthetics that even in settings such as gay clubs, where effeminate qualities on a male are understood to be de rigueur, males dancing in a masculine manner tend to be most revered (see Lanzieri & Hildebrandt 2011).

Part one

Much of how we feel when moving, both ‘on stage’ and in the everyday, hinges on how we envisage our performances are seen by others (Goffman 1959). Using aforementioned notions of cultural and physical capital — it can be argued that, as a male dancer, I have a stronger sense of self esteem and audience appeal when I dance in ways that are powerful and athletic, than if/when I dance in ways that are gentle and delicate. My sense is that the latter style, when performed by a male body, is regarded as being ludicrous and/or suspect.

Why I feel comfortable performing choreography and deporting myself in an arguably masculine manner above an arguably feminine manner — and why viewers may feel similarly on observing such performances — is dependent on our enculturation and conditioning to do and view masculine embodiment as more fitting for male bodies, and feminine embodiment as more fitting for female bodies (see Connell 1995, Shilling 2003). Gendered aesthetic notions of embodiment deemed to befit a male body have been inscribed on me both as a theatre practitioner and as a person in the everyday. As a performance arts professional who has worked mostly for mainstream audiences in theatre, film, and television, masculine embodiment is the way my dancer/actor body was most always directed to move (I was never directed to move softly or delicately, unless for comic effect). As a person in the everyday too, masculine embodiment is the direction in which I was encouraged to move. I understood that it was desirable for me to have a strong handshake, to participate in aggressive sports such as football, and to physically occupy and command space.

My sense of taste, as a manifestation of habitus (Bourdieu 1990, Turner 1992, Shilling 2003) that does not remain at the level of consciousness, controls and limits the ways in which I perform (both on stage and in the everyday), and ways in which I choreograph male and female bodies. Ways in which my male body was choreographed became my ‘male dancer habitus’. Ways that my body was choreographed to dance as a subject of choreographers (for mainstream television, film and theatre) informed and shaped how I came to operate as an agent over the bodies of others. Basically, my positioning toward masculine and feminine embodiment differed according to the biological sex of performers. Drawing on my growing kinaesthetic experience, knowledge, and aesthetic sensibility of dance, I did not cast, choreograph, or direct males to move in a feminine manner unless to project as comic, ludicrous, strange, or deviant. I knew that males dancing in an effeminate manner elicited laughter or sniggers from mainstream audiences. It never occurred to me why female bodies dancing in the same manner did not.

2 As a dance teacher, I thought myself agentic when for female bodies I would choreograph certain styles of motion. Yet, why is it that I would not have considered choreographing the same sequences on the bodies of males? Why the restriction to what I would allow myself to choreograph on male subjects? Indeed I admit to having unthinkingly made changes to dance sequences when male students came to classes ordinarily attended by females. My choreographic practices were — and to a certain extent still are — so embedded and invisible to that to me, they felt nothing but ‘natural’. I was unaware that the differential ways in which I choreographed male and female bodies reflected gender inequality.

State and nationally funded ‘dance in education’ performances which I took to Australian schools were well received, making the notion of male dancing acceptable and ‘cool’. However, in retrospect, I regret that the masculine (predominantly hypermasculine) manner of dance which I directed and choreographed for the male bodies in these productions, denied — for both audiences and dancers — the validity and aesthetic qualities of male bodies that might also move in a delicate, feminine manner.

Gender Icons

I recently created a solo physical theatre performance on my own body in order to explore as well as articulate my frustrations, angers, dilemmas, and desires pertaining to embodiment and gender. The piece, titled Gender Icons, takes the form of autobiographical ‘identity work’ where the body is used as a research tool (Leavy 2009). This danced form of inquiry can be understood as a methodology wherein one’s questions are danced into wonder (Snowber 2002). Arts-based forms of presentation such as these can be used as a means of creating critical awareness or raising consciousness in audiences (Leavy 2009). Indeed I had hoped the piece would impact on audiences in ways that were more than merely entertaining. In Gender Icons, I shift fluidly between points on a gender continuum, between styles of dance that are arguably masculine or feminine, challenge audiences to consider how and why we tend to connect certain embodiment and embodied demeanour with males or females respectively, and why it is that transgressive or non-normative performances of gender are understood to be marked or peculiar.

Gender Icons

In working on Gender Icons, I was mindful of repertoires of embodiment that had become ‘natural’ for me, as well as those that were corporeally uncomfortable for me. Preparing sections of Gender Icons in which my body danced in feminine ways involved deliberate embodiment against what had become my

3 ‘male dance habitus’. Although I was confident that I was physically and technically capable of performing sequences of movement that I had choreographed, moving my body in the feminine manner required by particular sections of my choreography felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It was not my habit to move in such ways, unless choreographing for females, and I found it difficult to let myself go in ways I could when performing actions that were not feminine.

Performances of Gender Icons that I have executed for peers and academics were held and contextualised as academic events in lecture theatres and conference centres, and as such, performing feminine sections of the piece was not too disconcerting. My sense of confidence was contingent on the audience knowing something of the context of the piece prior to viewing it. Even in cases where audience members laughed at particular segments, I felt that their responses were grounded in the knowledge that the piece had an academic purpose. Audience members acknowledged that the piece may not be appreciated in the same way in non-academic contexts.

As my research progressed, it seemed appropriate to incorporate Gender Icons into empirical ethnographic fieldwork that I had planned for high school student groups. As a choreographer, my hopes were that the piece might challenge and promote critical inquiry into the gendered ways in which students perceived masculine/feminine embodiment according to the biological sex of the performer. However, as a performer I was anxious about performing Gender Icons for those students because of how uncomfortable I anticipated I would feel dancing before an audience who might not be attuned to the intended tone of the piece. As I said in recorded discussions with my peers, I felt that when performing Gender Icons for high school audiences 'the sniggers and giggles would really probably tear me up'.

Part 2

I took issues concerning embodied discourses and ideologies of gender, aesthetics, and sexuality into empirical ethnographic fieldwork with some 400 high school students in four co-education private and public institutions, and 160 educators and performance arts practitioners who worked with young people. These sessions involved a combination of a performance (Gender Icons), discussion, practical workshop, and avenues for anonymous response, through which I hoped to explore the potential of the performance arts in challenging inequitable notions of gender embodiment.

In workshop sessions with performance arts educators, frustrations were expressed concerning students becoming less and less open to moving in particular ways as they grow older: 'In the younger years it’s ok for them to do everything, but hit grade four and the boys do this and the girls do that. I just hate it, hate it. They get it so driven out of them'.

Teachers spoke of how children are socialised into expectations regarding action and embodiment deemed appropriate to male bodies and female bodies, and how “non-gendernormative” action or embodiment aroused responses that were aversive.

Concerns were expressed for the well-being of male students who might dance in soft or feminine manner in school performances. One high school teacher told of a male student who danced in a feminine manner in a school performance being teased and mimicked relentlessly for months following his appearance, eventually leading the boy to leave the school. Another educator who was organising musical performances for primary school assemblies told a story of an eleven year old boy who approached her and asked if he could audition privately for her, which she allowed him to do: 'I drew the curtains in the drama room so nobody could look in at lunchtime, sat down and watched him. And I actually, when I first watched him start to dance, I went “ooh”. And I didn’t know how to react because it was so feminine … I just sat there and I thought, well you know what, that just blew me away. And if that’s what he wants to show … I was really, really keen for him to show that, because anyone with half a brain would have seen the passion in that boy.'

4 This teacher was in a real dilemma over what was in the best interests of the student. She spoke of having ended up supporting the boy in a decision not to perform in front of the school. Her justification was that his performance would have led to him being teased and bullied. She was torn between her protective concern over exposing the student to public scrutiny, and feelings (as an arts educator) of perhaps having failed the boy in not nurturing or encouraging his talent.

Teachers spoke of how students in later primary school and high school made connections between feminine embodiment on a male (which was seen to be 'weird' and 'abnormal') and homosexuality, resulting in 'gay' embodiment being positioned and understood as weird, subordinate, undesirable, and unaesthetic. As mentioned earlier, these assumptions applied to both staged and everyday performances.

The television program So You Think You Can Dance, produced by Fremantle Media Australia for Network Ten offers some clues to the way feminine embodiment signals as inappropriate or unaesthetic for a male body. The program, which premiered in 2008 was the top rating program in its timeslot from 2008 - 2010, and attracted thousands of Australian dancers in a competition to become Australia’s most popular dancer. In the program the judges praised males who danced 'hard and strong': 'What we have in front of us here is a real man, a bloke. …Yeah, and you danced like a bloke. It had a male energy, a male strength about it, you know it was like a real man dancing like a real man, and I love that. I’m a fan of that' (comment from Jason Coleman, judge)

In contrast, viewers were consistently exposed to judges’ dismissal and degradation of males who did not dance in a masculine way.

Indeed, in narrowing the field down to 20 finalists, the judges on the program put forward to the general public week after week the forms of masculine and feminine embodiment that were considered as the best. Although judges commended versatility and talked about the need to stand out in order to stay in the contest through advice like 'be brave, be different'; this advice clearly excluded standing out as a male dancer who moved in a dainty, delicate, or feminine manner. Those males were criticised as being 'too girlie' or 'too effeminate'; a form of denigration that was never leveled against female dancers who danced in styles that were arguably powerful or aggressive.

Rhys, a male contestant on the first series of the program was severely criticised by the judges for dancing in a 'girlie' manner during the auditions. While the judges apparently had no problems with Rhys’ homosexuality, wild hairstyles, glitzy make up, or flamboyant costuming, they were very clear that he should not dance in a feminine manner: that he should 'dance like a real man'. Basically, in order to stay in the competition, Rhys had to dance in ways that the judges found appropriate and aesthetic for a male, regardless of how he might choose to dance in other settings.

Judges’ comments clearly relayed the physical capital and aesthetic value of males who danced in masculine manner over males who danced in feminine manner, thus impacting on and enforcing, for millions of Australians viewing the program, the type of male embodiment that is admirable – masculine embodiment. We need to question why the aesthetic value of a male dancing or moving in an effeminate manner is so repugnant.

The denigrating of feminine embodiment on a male ties in with potent social assumptions that link effeminate embodiment on a male with homosexuality, and the deep-seated positioning of ‘gay’ embodiment as subordinate and undesirable. For example, Bonnie Lythgoe, one of the judges declared in a pleasantly surprised tone to a male dancer whose CV listed that he had been ‘Mr Gay Australia’: 'You’re not what I expected …Well, on here it says ‘Mr Gay Australia … so you came on the floor, and I was ‘O-Oh, Mr Gay is going to dance like very effeminate.' When the dancer spoke of trying to dance in a strong manner, Bonnie praised him by saying: 'and you did dance like a man'. Clichéd expectations of what ‘gay’ embodiment is, connecting with the devaluation of feminine embodiment in a male, leaves little doubt

5 about the value and place of non-masculine men and serves to reinforce stereotypical and arguably oppressive notions of homonormativity and heteronormativity, the latter being subordinate to the former.

In shows such as So You Think You Can Dance, the ‘expert’ judges’ assessments of what is attractive and unattractive motion for males to perform and not to perform, go beyond the dance floor. They impact on ways in which viewers regard, value, and favour masculine embodiment on a male above feminine in general. With this in mind, I commenced my visits to high schools by informing students that I was researching human physical action and gender. I then performed Gender Icons and invited students’ responses to the piece and discussion of anything it triggered for them. In general, what arose in group discussions was the strongly expressed and strongly supported view that individuals should not care about how others regard them and should be free to embody gender in any way at all: 'You've got to not care what people think.' However, the accepting tone of such declarations was at odds with other things that arose, particularly in one public inner city co-educational high school that boasted a successful and established dance program.

The school’s dance teacher, who had clearly generated male interest in dance within her school, told me re how she had been forced to choreograph 'boy alternatives' for her male students because the boys in her dance program refused to do particular types of dance steps: 'The boys I’ve taught will only replicate the kind of dance they’ve seen in the media. They’ll only replicate what they’ve seen in pop videos or the hip and cool people that they aspire to be'. The teacher spoke of self-monitoring when choreographing: 'I find myself thinking, the boys aren’t going to do these steps'. The teacher, who tried to expose her students to a variety of dance forms, spoke of her students’ aversive responses to segments of a video of DV8 Physical Theatre’s Enter Achilles (RM Associates BBC, 1996), which featured sensual, non-violent male-male physical contact. She informed me that they found this type of non-gendernormative choreography 'disgusting'.

Students’ publicly voiced declarations that individuals should be free to embody gender in any way at all, were at odds with privately expressed anxieties articulated in anonymous response sheets. Most of these hinged on concerns over being seen to be ‘gay’, and/or ensuring that others know that that they are straight: 'I don’t want people to think I’m gay'

'I would always stop myself from moving in a feminine way with the exception of when I am joking or impersonating someone. This is possibly because I am 16 years old and all a 16 year old really wants is to be accepted, to know that he’s okay. Not be ridiculed or called ‘gay’.'

'I would dance like a female only when dared to or while imitating someone. However while doing so I wouldn’t feel conscious/awkward cause I know and so does everyone else that I am straight.'

Clearly for these students, transgressive embodiment on a male is seen as ‘gay’, and being seen as such is to be avoided.

There were also tensions between students’ public declarations that individuals should not care how others regard them and how they handled a practical workshop activity that I conducted with them. I read out a quote to students from So You Think You Can Dance, which was still airing at the time. The quote was from a comment made by one of the judges (Jason) to a female hip-hop dancer (Pania): 'What you showed me is very aggressive and very masculine actually. It’s very masculine. At the end of today you are a dancer that I will remember and that’s a credit to you. I enjoyed you.'

6 I asked students to imagine the inverse being said to a male dancer, whereby a male might be complimented for moving in a feminine manner. Then I organised students to work in small mixed groups of between four to eight students in each. With the females working as choreographers and the males as dancers/subjects, the brief was to create and choreograph a dance sequence for a male body that was feminine in manner which would be admired and get the following positive comment from a judge on a mainstream television program such as So You Think You Can Dance: 'What you showed me is very soft and very feminine actually. It’s very feminine. At the end of today you are a dancer that I will remember and that’s a credit to you. I enjoyed you.'

In each of the school fieldwork sites, female students created and taught their male counterparts short dance sequences that for the most part involved swaying of hips, wafting arms, and limp wrists. It was clear to me from ways in which students undertook the workshop activity, that there was a contradiction between what students had articulated rationally or cerebrally about non-‘normative’ embodiment of gender in group discussion, and they way they were actually able to engage with it in practice. Apart from one school group, it was apparent that moving in feminine ways was uncomfortable, embarrassing, or a source of amusement for the males concerned: boys laughed or groaned as their female choreographers showed them steps to perform; boys held back physically from accurately reproducing steps that they were taught; boys stood with hands in pockets until prodded by their female choreographers to do the steps they were being taught; boys added parodic embellishments such as pouting lips and/or vocalised flourishes that mocked the choreography that they were being asked to execute.

The girls, in handling the task of choreographing the boys, also did not work in the previously expressed spirit that individuals should be able to embody freely. Their peals of laughter denoted what felt to me as boorish pleasure at challenging their male choreographic subjects to tackle steps that they put together for them to execute, enforcing notions that males moving in a feminine manner were incongruous, ludicrous, and objects of amusement. Their responses affirmed that as females they too are caught up in patriarchal, masculinist ideologies of embodiment for males.

In all but one school group, performances were done in fun and parody. Male and female audience members whooping for their male classmates moving in a feminine manner before them made clear that, despite earlier expressed sentiments, the male moving in an effeminate manner continues to be positioned and regarded as an object of amusement. There was no sense that any dance sequences which were created were actually aesthetic as executed by a male body, despite this having been the challenge of the task.

It was noteworthy for me that one of the school groups with which I worked handled the workshop very differently to the other high school groups. The boys took the task seriously and focussed on executing the choreography that they were given by the girls as proficiently as they were able. They appeared to perform the moves without inhibition or self-consciousness of how others might respond. They performed neither with laughter nor any sense of parody. On discussion with the school teacher and the vice-principal, I learned that this particular school earnestly advocates respect, both of self and of others, an outlook that seemed to operate in practical, and not just theoretical terms within this school culture.

Conclusion

I believe that despite positive shifts in cultural attitudes toward notions of multiple masculinities, embedded notions regarding aesthetic embodiment for males continue to suppress and denigrate ‘other’ possibilities of gender expression possible for the male dancer – and males in general. My findings reveal that such freedom is impeded by potent social assumptions that link feminine embodiment on a male with homosexuality, and the deep-seated positioning of ‘gay’ embodiment as subordinate and undesirable

On the positive side, students were able to articulate and rationalise about embodied gender equity:

7 'I can be both masculine and effeminate and that’s ok!' 'Anyone should behave however they want and society should just accept them' 'Moving our body in masculine or effeminate ways … doesn’t have anything to do with being a gay person' 'I think that if anyone has a problem with that they should just build a bridge and get over it'

However sentiments they articulated in words were not realised in the way they could actually engage with embodied performance that did not match norms of gender behaviour, leaving the male who embodies in a feminine manner as an object of amusement or distain.

For embodied gender equity to occur, there needs to be a shift in mindset within whole school cultures and society in general. The dance and PE classroom are sites within which educators can create activities and programs that draw students’ attention – as active participants and as audience members – to issues of embodied gender inequity, in order to broaden what becomes choreographically acceptable and aesthetic for all persons (regardless of biological sex - or sexual orientation). Beyond dance itself, this work can contribute to the promotion of respect for diversity, as prescribed in staff and student codes of conduct (Department of Education Victoria 2008).

My thoughts are that dance and PE educators, and choreographers and directors of school musicals, need to find ways to implement and apply critical literacy skills, (as influenced by feminism, post-structural studies, gender studies, queer theory, and men’s studies), – ordinarily used to disrupt, expose, and challenge inherent ideologies in spoken and written language – toward the deconstruction of embodied discourses and ideologies of gender, aesthetics, and sexuality. Through means of ‘critical inquiry’ (see Gard 2004) educators can challenge and break down inequitable aesthetic notions of dancing bodies that differ for bodies that project as male and those that project as female. In addition they can challenge potent social assumptions that link feminine embodiment on males - and to a lesser degree masculine embodiment on females - with homosexuality as that which is subordinate and undesirable. In doing this kind of work, I am wary of simply trying, with students, to reverse what is. While ‘embodied parody’ (Butler 1990) may be capable of challenging heterosexist norms it is also capable (as I saw in my workshop) of reinscribing them.

In order to open avenues toward change, dance practitioners/educators, also need to recognise blindspots in regard to their own positioning toward, and perspectives of, what is appropriate embodiment for males and females. They need to question their own awareness of gendered and inequitable aspects of their own habitual practices, and senses of aesthetics that might differ according to the biological sex of a performer. Consideration needs to be given to the effects that induction to arts and cultural heritages, that prescribe differing norms for male bodies and female bodies, may have on how dance educators come to train, teach, and choreograph the bodies of their students, both in the classroom and in school performances (such as school eisteddfods and conventional mainstream musicals).

The ways in which my male body was trained and choreographed as a subject of dance teachers and choreographers, as well as repeated viewing and doing of particular stylisations of the body, resulted in my ‘dance and choreographic habitus’. Whilst it is possible for me to declare that how I choreograph is an essential part of myself that feels natural and tasteful, it can be argued that what has come to feel natural and tasteful is simply the effect of a lifetime of dominant patriarchal, heteronormative, and gendernormative discourses of embodiment and gender, the machinations of which were fundamentally invisible to me.

There is a need for professional development in which dance educators (myself included) turn the mirror onto ourselves and our own gender inequitable perspectives and practices, and consider what these are

8 likely to perpetuate and reinforce in our students’ orientations toward gender aesthetics and gender embodiment. Inherent ideologies in the discourses of aesthetics regarding the display of feminine embodiment on a male, continue to work invisibly as definitive and restrictive barriers to the realm of possibilities of gender expression and appreciation in mainstream Australian society. Rather, it is possible to appreciate the myriad of possibilities of gender and sexuality (see Halberstam 1998) as points on a gender continuum in which identifications may be 'fluid, transitory, fragmented, episodic' (Pallotta- Chiarolli 2010, p.30) and not encumbered by imperatives to conform to constraints of learned gender alignments (Taylor & Richardson 2005). With this in mind, it is desirable to expand movement repertoires and embodied modes of expression available to the male dancer. This paper advocates the fostering of gender equitable appreciation of that which is choreographically possible for all individuals, regardless of biological sex - or sexual orientation. We are becoming aware that more and more individuals do not fit neatly into either/or categories of male/female/masculine/feminine, and so now, more than ever, we need to address and challenge tacit aesthetic assumptions steeped in inequitable binary notions that hinge on the biology of the performer.

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